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On-line version ISSN 1982-0232

Rev. soc. bras. fonoaudiol. vol.17 no.2 São Paulo Apr./June 2012

http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1516-80342012000200001

Editorial

Dra.
Fernanda Dreux M. Fernandes

I
am writing this editorial on my way back to Brazil form the Council for
Academic Development in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CADCSD) annual
meeting. I participated in this event as the representative of the
Undergraduate Program in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology of the School
of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), but its results go beyond that
representation. For the first time the Council, that usually includes American
programs on CSD, invited representatives from 16 countries to a Global Summit.

This
initiative produced an intriguing panel about the different stages of
development of the area in different regions of the world. It also created the
opportunity to deepen discussions about several issues, as the impact of the
World Report on Deficiency (published by the World Health Organization), which
I discussed on a recent editorial.

Another
extensively discussed aspect was the possible initiatives to improve the
internationalization of academic programs, in order to allow the education of
professionals that are more aware of different global realities and therefore
more able to work in different opportunities. One of the easiest applicable
alternatives is developing the habit of reading international journals. There
is no doubt about the quality improvement that was observed in the Brazilian
Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology with the easier access to international
publications, which also resulted in significant quality improvement of the
Brazilian journals. In other realities, however, the issue is frequently not
related to the access to foreign publications, but rather to the need to get
away from a certain comfort zone, where only national (or even regional)
journals are considered relevant (or sufficient).

The
Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia has been constantly working
in this direction: to continue to be an essential reference to the
evidence-based practice by publishing studies conducted in the Brazilian
reality with Portuguese-speaking individuals, that are relevant for the
Brazilian SLP or Audiologist; and, at the same time, to increasingly become an
international reference in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. Completely
bilingual publication and open-access are fundamental aspects in this path,
allowing the Revista to increase the international impact of the research
conducted in Brazil and the discussions about its applicability to other
realities.

Hence,
we continue publishing studies conducted in the more relevant universities, by
renowned researchers and young talents, always counting with careful and
generous reviews from our editorial board.

The
first Original Article is presented by Azevedo, Friche and Lemos, from
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and is called Quality of life and self-perception
of health of patients from an Outpatient Clinic of Speech-Language Pathology
and Audiology. In this study, 97 adults responded to
questionnaires about quality of life and self-perception of health. The authors
concluded that self-perception as a healthy person was related to the
individual's quality of life, and that both aspects are influenced by low
educational status.

Communication difficulties between individuals with hearing
disability and health professionals: a public health matter is the title of
the paper written by Castro, Paiva and César from the School
of Public Health of Universidade de São Paulo. In this study the authors sought
to describe the occurrence of reported difficulties of people with hearing
and/or multiple disabilities (auditory and visual and/or mobility) regarding
their difficulties in hearing and understanding health professionals. They
concluded that more than one third of the subjects have problems to hear and
understand what these professionals say.

Yamamoto and Ferrari, from the Bauru School of
Dentistry of Universidade de São Paulo studied the Relationship between
hearing thresholds, handicap and the time to taken seek treatment for hearing
loss
in 200 adults and elderly. The authors concluded that the search for treatment
seems to be influenced by hearing thresholds, and that, despite technological
advances and changes in the access to information and treatment, the time taken
to search for treatment was similar to that reported 30 years ago.

Dizziness in elderly individuals: otoneurological diagnosis and
interference on the quality of life is the title of the paper
presented by Scherer, Lisboa and Pasqualotti from Universidade
de Passo Fundo. Participants were 56 elderly individuals with dizziness, mean
age of 71.2 years. The authors concluded that most elderly patients with
dizziness present alterations in audiometry and vectoelectronystagmography,
which interfere in their quality of life.

The Performance of
elderly individuals with presbycusis in tasks involving inhibitory control was studied by
Costa and Zimmer, from
Universidade Católica de Pelotas. The authors determined a control group of
normal hearing individuals, a group of individuals with presbycusis users of
hearing aid, and a group of individuals with presbycusis who did not use
hearing aid. Statistical analysis indicated a difference between individuals
with and without hearing loss only in reaction time.

Camboim, Scharlach, Almeida, Vasconcelos and Azevedo, from
Universidade Estadual de Ciências da Saúde de Alagoas, describe the study about
the
Analysis of compliance and tympanometric gradient in infants with reflux. Participants
were 118 full-term and preterm infants, from newborns to 6-month-olds, 63 with
clinical diagnosis of physiological gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and
55 without GER. The authors concluded that
infants with reflux have compliance within normal limits,
although they present lower compliance than infants without reflux.

The Characterization
of the pattern of velopharyngeal closure in cleft palate patients was studied by Di Ninno, Rezende, Jesus, Pires, Godinho and Britto, of Pontifícia Universidade Católica de
Minas Gerais. The authors concluded that most of the sample presented coronal
pattern of velopharyngeal closure, and that there was no relationship between
closure pattern and the variables gender, age, and cleft type, but there was a
related influence of the diagnosis of velopharyngeal function.

Multicenter study about severity scales of neurogenic
oropharyngeal dysphagia is the title of the paper written by Silva, Motonaga, Cola, Gatto, Ribeiro, Carvalho, Schelp, Jorge, Peres and Dantas, from Universidade
Estadual Paulista (Marília and Botucatu campi). The authors
describe a clinical cross-sectional study with 200 participants with neurogenic
oropharyngeal dysphagia. They conclude that the agreement between the clinical
scales was very good and between the objective scales was moderate, and suggest
that further discussion and possible revision of the parameters that define the
severity of oropharyngeal dysphagia in neurological patients are required.

The
paper Myofunctional
characteristics of obese mouth and nose breathers was written by Berlese, Fontana, Botton, Weimnann and Haeffner from Universidade
Federal de Santa Maria. Participants were 24 obese children and adolescents;
most of them presented oral breathing and myofunctional alterations of
the stomatognathic system.

Mendes, Pandolfi, Carabetta Júnior, Novo and Colombo-Souza, from
Universidade de Santo Amaro, studied the Factors associated to
language disorders in preschool children on a cross-sectional study
that screened 126 children. Risk for language disorders was detected in 18.3%
of the participants.

Acoustic characteristics of the phonemes [s] and [∫] of adults and
children without phonological disorders is the title of the study
conducted at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria by Brasil, Mezzomo, Mota, Melo, Lovatto and Arzeno with 26
participants. The authors report that children's and adults' productions were
similar for most of the considered parameters.

In
a research conducted at the School of Medicine of Universidade de São Paulo, Wertzner, Claudino, Galea, Patah and Castro studied Phonological
measures in children with phonological disorders in 36 children with ages
between 5 and 7 years. Children with phonological disorders presented poorer
performance when compared to the control group.

Relationship between the percentage of consonant correct and
phonological working memory in specific language impairment is the title
of the study reported by Befi-Lopes, Tanikawa and Cáceres, also from the
School of Medicine of Universidade de São Paulo. This retrospective study
included 30 children diagnosed with specific language impairment with ages
between 4 and 6 years. The authors state that age do not influence the
improvement of phonological abilities and phonological working memory.

Researchers
from Universidade Estadual Paulista, Oliveira, Cardoso and Capellini, present the
results of the study about the Characterization of reading processes in
students with dyslexia and learning disabilities. Participants were 60 students
from first to fourth grades of Elementary School. The authors report that
students with dyslexia and learning disabilities present lower but different
performances in reading assessment tasks.

The Influence of
the type of visual stimulus in the written production of deaf signers without
complaints of writing impairments was studied by Rodrigues, Abdo and Cárnio  School of
Medicine of Universidade de São Paulo  in 14 children
(ages 8 to 13) that were users of the Brazilian Sign Language. They concluded
that the use of visual stimuli did not interfere in the written production of
the studied individuals.

Borrego and Behlau, from
Universidade Federal de São Paulo, describe the study Emphatic accent
used by individuals with and without voice and speech training. Based on the
analysis of 77 individuals, the authors concluded that the use of emphasis
resources is a particular choice, and not a result of vocal training.

The
first Case Report refers to the Acoustic and
auditory-perceptual analyses of voice before and after speech-language therapy
in patients with mutational falsetto, and was written
by Gama, Mesquita, Reis and Bassi, from Universidade
Federal de Minas Gerais. The authors describe the results of speech-language
therapy of four young men with mutational falsetto.

The other Case
Report describes the Benefits of botulinum toxin associated to
swallowing therapy in patients with severe dysphagia and is presented by Menezes, Rodrigues, Oliveira Neto, Chiari, Manrique and Gonçalves, from Universidade Federal de São Paulo. It is a retrospective study of five
neurological patients with ages between 17 and 70 years, who exclusively used
alternative tube feeding.

Zeigelboim, from Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná, writes the New
Reflexions paper about the article Balance Rehabilitation Unit (BRUTM)
posturography in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, which was
published in 2011 on the journal Arquivos de Neuropsiquiatria.

Cardoso, from Universidade do Estado da Bahia, reviews the
paper Brazil:
towards sustainability and equity in health, published in
2011 on theLancet.

Finally,
the Abstracts presented refer to the following researches: Coping
strategies in teacher with voice complaint, by Zambon, Masters
dissertation from Universidade Federal de São Paulo; Cross-cultural adaptation and
validation of the Voice Symptom Scale  VoiSS into Brazilian Portuguese, by Moreti, Masters
dissertation from Universidade Federal de São Paulo; Acute effects of
sleep deprivation on the central auditory processing in healthy adults, by Liberalesso, Doctorate
thesis fromUniversidade
Tuiuti do Paraná; and The conditions of literacy in the aging process: an
analysis with elderly over 65 years, by Souza Filho, Masters
dissertation from Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná.

Congratulations
to the authors and, as always, many thanks to the reviewers!